Copyright © 2010 by the author(s). Published here under license by the Resilience Alliance. Tejeda-Cruz, C., E. Silva-Rivera, J. R. Barton and W. J. Sutherland. 2010. Why shade coffee does not guarantee biodiversity conservation. Ecology and Society 15(1): 13. [online] URL: http://www. ecologyandsociety.org/vol15/iss1/art13/ Insight Why Shade Coffee Does Not Guarantee Biodiversity Conservation. César Tejeda-Cruz 1,2 , Evodia Silva-Rivera 2 , Jonathan R. Barton 3 , and William J. Sutherland 4 ABSTRACT. Over the past decade, various strategies have emerged to address critical habitat losses through agricultural expansion. The promotion of shade-grown, premium-priced coffee has been highlighted as one alternative. Our research, based on interviews with farmers in Chiapas, disputes some of the assumptions made by shade coffee campaigners. Results revealed a predisposition to converting forest to shade coffee production due to the socioeconomic challenges farmers face and the potential for increasing incomes. To ensure that their well-being is improved at the same time as reducing environmental impacts, there is clearly a need to provide more detailed information on who is responsible for enforcing certification criteria and how this should take place. Key Words: alternative coffee; conservation; biodiversity; Mexico INTRODUCTION Agriculture is one of the greatest reasons for declines in global biodiversity (Donald 2004, Green et al. 2005). Furthermore, with increasing human populations and greater affluence, both the area devoted to farming and the intensity of farming are likely to increase. A major challenge we face is how to cope with this increasing demand of agricultural production and the need to meet biodiversity conservation objectives (Harvey et al. 2008). The response of conservationists can be categorized into two broad philosophies: promote more benign forms of agriculture, for example, through agri- environment schemes or marketing environmentally sensitive products; or minimize the impacts of agriculture on specific areas, for example, by intensifying production to allow land to become available for reserves. The key question, raised by Green et al. (2005) is: which is more effective at protecting biodiversity? It has been recently acknowledged that protected areas alone are not enough to ensure biodiversity conservation, but the surrounding agricultural matrix should also be considered in successful management strategies (Vandermeer and Perfecto 2007, Harvey et al. 2008). Shade coffee, that is, coffee produced under a tree canopy, is probably the archetypal example of benign agricultural practices. Studies in the last 20 years have shown that shade coffee is an agroecosystem where biodiversity can be conserved, unlike coffee varieties that are grown in the open (Perfecto and Armbrecht 2002). Moreover, during the last decade, shade coffee has been promoted as a commercial activity that is compatible with the conservation of forest and its related fauna (Perfecto and Armbrecht 2002, Rappole et al. 2003, Dietsch et al. 2004, Tejeda- Cruz and Sutherland 2004, Raman 2006) since shade coffee maintains a high species diversity of animals and plants (Perfecto et al. 1996, Moguel and Toledo 1999, Perfecto and Armbrecht 2002). Literature has documented the importance of shade coffee for arthropods (Nestel et al. 1993, Perfecto and Snelling 1995), amphibians (Pineda and Halffter 2004, Pineda et al. 2005), resident and migratory birds (Greenberg et al. 1997a,b, Tejeda- Cruz and Sutherland 2004, Komar 2006, Raman 2006), and mammals (Estrada et al. 1993, 1994, Gallina et al. 1996, Cruz-Lara et al. 2004, Numa et al. 2005, Williams-Guillen et al. 2006). Linked to this, it has also been suggested that shade coffee plantations may play an important role as buffer zones around protected areas and forest patches (Moguel and Toledo 1999, Dietsch et al. 2004, 1 Escuela de Ingeniería Ambiental, Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas, 2 Centro de Investigaciones Tropicales, Universidad Veracruzana, 3 Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, 4 Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge